The Future Was 10 Years Ago
“You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”
- Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
My Corgi, Sydney, brings me constant joy. One of her qualities that brings me the most joy is her obsession over her toys, and there are lots of them! Sydney is very orderly about her toys, there are some that live upstairs and others downstairs. I swear she knows which ones are animals and which are foods like a Pup-kin Spice Latte or my personal favorite sub sandwich that is nearly the same size as her 24-pound, 6-inch tall frame. Where Sydney is not orderly is with her allegiance to these toys. Some days she is all about Bob Toss (yes, a toy squirrel made to look like Bob Ross… don’t ask me why, I truly don’t know) and other days she is all about the alligator or the squeaky pop tart. There’s no rhyme or reason to her choices, but, in the moment, whatever toy is in front of her is the most important toy she’s ever known.
It occurs to me that the amazing people like you who change lives and systems every day through churches and nonprofits think of the past in a similar way to my dog’s fleeting obsessions with her toys. We love memories when we remember them and deeply feel all the joy and fulfillment that came from those moments when “life was simpler” or when “funding was good” or when “people (read: young families) filled up the pews”. I have observed so many churches and nonprofits make non-strategic and even desperate decisions in this modality, operating from a posture of nostalgia where memories invade our minds and inform our decisions, not realizing the strategic and personal cost to decision-making akin to choosing a toy of the moment. Nostalgia feels good and soothes our brain, but at what cost?
I’ve been serving in churches and nonprofits for almost 15 years. We well-meaning church and nonprofit types get stuck in nostalgia because, well, it feels good, and our brains yearn for a rush of serotonin because, let’s face it, our work is hard. People are hard. Systems are hard. Politics are hard. We see suffering and pain every single day in our work. Yet, nostalgia and looking for soothing doesn’t lead us to transformation and leadership. It is our task as those whose vocation is people and systems to overcome these escapist tendencies by building up capacity for, as one of my faves Brené Brown has shared through her research, empathy, courage, and compassion which leads to resilience.
This is why I’ve started this blog. I believe in you. And I believe in our collective capacity to grow more empathetic, courage, compassionate, and resilient but we have to first admit to ourselves and to one another that those of us doing amazing and transformative work every day are stuck in the past (for all the reasons I’ve laid out above) while the future is racing ahead every day. That’s why the title of this blog is “The Future Is 10 Years Ago”. We’ve been so busy caring for people, changing systems, and trying our hardest to keep the lights of our churches and nonprofits on that we haven’t taken a minute to learn and leverage all the opportunities and exciting advancements happening all around us. We cling to the past because, frankly, it’s all we know. I believe this is why things like AI, CRM, and new ways to approach fundraising are so scary to many of us. It’s not that we don’t want to learn and grow, we simply don’t have the time to meet the future where it’s taking us.
I understand this deeply, so let me help you meet the future even if it’s the future that was 10 years ago. In this blog I am going to tell you a little bit about cool things happening and evolving and how it informs our space. I’m going to share my thoughts on how we mediate all that is happening around us in tech, social media, email, CRM, and fundraising through the lens of what is actually possible for those of us doing our level best to make every day work and serve people the rest of the world does not see. I’m also going to try my hardest to share in a way that will make you chuckle, talk a little bit about my experiences over 15 years, and maybe even share an anecdote or two from my childhood in rural North Carolina.
So, hop on board with me and let’s see where this train takes us. I hope it will take you to a space of experimentation, of trying new things, of remembering the past for what it is but not being stuck. And may we all have the joy and ability to be like my Corgi and choose a new toy and be obsessed with it but then, because she’s also wise, put it down and move on to the next thing.